


Long, Long Thoughts

by EnchantressEmily



Category: Widdershins (Webcomic)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 16:59:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18480487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnchantressEmily/pseuds/EnchantressEmily
Summary: Lying in bed the night after Curtain Call, Ben mulls over the events of the day.





	Long, Long Thoughts

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Scars We Give Each Other](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17084339) by [M3zzaTh3M3z](https://archiveofourown.org/users/M3zzaTh3M3z/pseuds/M3zzaTh3M3z). 
  * Inspired by [After the Long Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18226892) by [Heylir](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heylir/pseuds/Heylir). 



> Spoilers for Curtain Call.
> 
> The sections in italics are retold scenes from Curtain Call (not in chronological order).

Ben lay with his hands folded behind his head, gazing into the darkness of this unfamiliar room and listening to the sound of his friends breathing. At this time yesterday he had been sitting at his desk in his office, settling in for a long night of research; now office, desk, and books were gone, along with almost everything else he owned, and he was sleeping on a sofa in a borrowed nightshirt, in the house of a couple he had met only a few hours ago.

Captain Barber's brother Edmund was nothing at all like her - or like their sister Harriet, for that matter - but he and his wife were clearly good people; when Sidney had appeared at their door without Harriet and explained in a tumble of words that the three strangers with him had nowhere to go, they had unhesitatingly offered their spare room. Ben could only be glad that the Barber siblings' brother-in-law was staying in the house too; his spare nightshirt was long on Ben, but far closer to the right size than anything belonging to the big, bulky Edmund would have been.

It had been a very long, very strange day, but Ben wasn't ready to sleep yet. He wanted some time to get his thoughts in order, to process the wildly varying range of emotions that he had gone through over the course of the day, leaving him...where?

He wasn't the same Benjamin Thackerey he had been that morning, he was fairly sure of that. Something about the fight against Sloth, and the things Verity had said to him then, had changed him in ways that he didn't fully understand.

 

_"How dare you talk that way about my favourite cousin?!" Vee shouted, wheeling around to grab him by the shoulder. She looked angrier than Ben had ever seen her. "If I heard anyone else saying that about you, I'd destroy them!"_

_Ben gaped at her, jolted out of his spiral into despair. For all the times Vee had defended him when they were children, it had genuinely never occurred to him that she, or anyone else, could feel that way about him._

_"Do you really think I was taking pity on you on those hikes?!" Vee demanded, her grip on his shoulder relaxing slightly. "You don't need pity, Benji!"_

_Ben tried to speak, but she swept on. "Because you're persistent! You're resolute! You could have stopped walking back then! You could stop walking now! But I know you're not going to! And that's far from useless." The last words were flung over her shoulder as she turned and strode ahead through the mist._

_Ben stood and stared after her, stunned; her words seemed to have cleared a similar mist from his mind. How close had he come to succumbing to Sloth's influence? But this felt different from the debacle at the theatre, where he had sat and watched as Envy took the others captive; according to Vee, he had the innate strength to resist this particular attack, and always had._

_"Come on, then!" Vee called back to him. "Prove me right!"_

_Ben felt the corners of his mouth turn up slightly at the familiar bossy tone. "Alright," he said, starting to walk again. As he came level with his cousin, he added softly, "Thanks, Vee."_

 

"My favourite cousin", Ben thought, smiling to himself. That was probably true; he and Vee had always been close, despite their age difference. Blake and Bryony had had that private twin bond, and when it became evident that they had the potential to become brilliant wizards, they had drawn even closer together, leaving their less-talented little brother and magicless cousin on the outside.

Vee teased him and bossed him about, but if she happened to be nearby when the bigger boys in the next street started bullying him, she would dive instantly into the fray, blond plaits flying. Even though she had continued to call him Benji long after everyone else had stopped using the childhood nickname, Ben sometimes felt that she was the only member of his family who saw him as a capable adult.

This did not, of course, prevent her from being occasionally embarrassing.

 

_" Benji?!"_

_The familiar voice made Ben's head snap around. He stared unbelievingly at the tall figure beside Harriet. "What-? But-!" he stammered. How long had his cousin been in Widdershins? " What?!"_

_Vee charged over and swept him off his feet in a rib-bruising hug. "Harriet, you didn't tell me you knew my favourite little cousin!" she exclaimed._

_"I don't," Harriet said dryly._

_"But - but - " Ben sputtered, trying to keep hold of the notes Isabelle Barber had given him. " Verity?"_

_Vee set him down and pulled him into an affectionate headlock, rumpling his hair with her other hand. "You cut your hair! When did that happen? Does Auntie Beatrice know? She'll hate it!"_

_Ben knew from long experience that there was no diverting Vee when she got like this; the only thing to do was stand there and endure it. He could hear O'Malley sniggering helplessly, and even Wolfe was trying not to laugh. It was already obvious that he was never going to live this down._

 

Wolfe, to his credit, hadn't mentioned the incident again, but Ben strongly suspected that O'Malley would be calling him Benji for some time to come. Still, at least they were both alive for O'Malley to annoy him; there had been so many times when it could have gone differently.

The thought made Ben shiver, and he pulled the blanket more tightly around him, trying to pretend to himself that he was just cold. It was going to be a long time before he stopped reliving that moment when Wrath had broken down the office door.

 

_Ben stopped talking and put a hand to his head, feeling suddenly as if the room was tilting around him. A pain like the headaches he had had from O'Malley's Sight pulsed once behind his eyes and was gone. The effects of too little sleep? Or was something else happening?_

_"Did you feel that...?" he was starting to say when O'Malley made a strangled sound and doubled over, clutching his head._

_"O'Malley!" Ben yelped, scrambling to his feet. He hurried toward the other man, who was now on his knees on the floor, groaning. He still wasn't sure what was going on, but this was definitely something more than O'Malley's usual headaches. Where was Wolfe when you needed him?_

_He was bending to put a steadying hand on O'Malley's hunched shoulders when there was a tremendous splintering crash._

_"Ah, bugger," O'Malley muttered under his breath._

_They both stared up in horror at the huge, armored form of Wrath. " You," it thundered, its voice echoing in Ben's bones. "You DARE desummon me?!"_

_"W-where's its circle?!" Ben gasped, backing against the wall. He tried frantically to think of some way to get rid of the terrifying thing, but his mind was a blank._

_Wrath bared its pointed teeth. "I am no longer bound by man or witch!"_

_Witch? "B-but - " That was all Ben managed to say before Wrath burst into flames._

_"Die," its voice boomed from the center of the fire._

_O'Malley shoved Ben hard between the shoulderblades, pushing him toward the stairs. "Wolfe!" he yelled, clattering upward._

_Ben, falling over himself in his hurry to follow, spared one glance back to see everything that he had worked so hard for - his neat, professional-looking office, his collection of reference books, even the diploma for his despised third-class degree - going up in flames._

 

That had been bad enough, but even worse than the feeling of seeing his work destroyed was the sickening jolt that had gone through him when Wolfe suggested he escape through the small bedroom window alone. Ben shivered again and glanced involuntarily toward the bed where Wolfe and O'Malley were sleeping (not that he could make them out in the dark with his glasses off).

He hadn't been thinking very coherently at the time, but now he could identify that jolt as a visceral realization that carrying on his business with his colleagues gone would feel utterly pointless. It wasn't only that catching malforms was far easier with three people, one of whom could see them; it was that his days would seem empty without the sound of Wolfe's violin and the smell of O'Malley's cigarette smoke, without the cheerfulness of the one and the sardonic remarks of the other. Even bickering with O'Malley had become comfortingly familiar. He had never felt that sense of belonging before, even - or especially - when he was a child, and he didn't want to lose it.

A loud snore erupted from the bed, and Ben glanced that way again, smiling slightly. It was no surprise that O'Malley had claimed the second spot in the bed; Ben didn't think he had let Wolfe out of his sight for more than a few minutes since they had all been reunited at the Anchor. The pair's usual awareness of each other seemed to have been heightened by their day-long separation and the dramatic events that had taken place at the end of it.

 

_Ben woke slowly, feeling as if he were surfacing from one of the odd, vivid dreams that sometimes came just before waking in the morning or with a fever. There had been some sort of dark pink fog… cages… O’Malley’s voice shouting… Luxuria._

_Ben struggled to a sitting position, looking wildly around. They were still in the Anchor; Vee was next to him, swearing under her breath as she fished for the pince-nez dangling on the end of their chain. Where were O’Malley and Wolfe?_

_Before Ben had time to really panic, he saw them sitting on the floor a few yards away. O’Malley was resting his head on one hand, looking tired; Wolfe sat beside him with an arm around his shoulders, smiling down at him._

_“O’Malley! What happened?” Ben asked urgently, climbing to his feet._

_“What the hell was that?!” Vee demanded at the same time._

_O’Malley smiled crookedly and raised his hand to cover Wolfe’s where it lay on his shoulder. From a man who almost never touched anyone casually, even Wolfe, it was a gesture that spoke volumes. “Alright, don’t all bloody yell at once,” he said. “I – “_

_“Ah, excuse me, sorry,” Sidney’s voice broke in. He had picked himself up too, and now he stood nearby, smiling uncertainly. “Where’s Harry?”_

_Ben saw the stricken look cross O’Malley’s face, and saw his hand clench on Wolfe’s. If he hadn’t been looking, he would have missed the way O’Malley’s eyes flicked to him next, as if for further reassurance. Something had happened in there; Ben didn’t know what, but it was clear it had shaken his friend badly. He crossed to stand on O’Malley’s other side, watching his face as they waited for him to speak._

 

Ben still didn’t like Sidney much – the man had a ridiculous amount of magical talent and no idea of what to do with it – but it was impossible not to feel sorry for him after seeing the expression on his face when O’Malley finally told them about Harriet.

Ben was rather impressed by her actions himself (was it too much to hope that she was keeping notes, wherever she was?), but he scarcely knew her except by reputation; it was different for Sidney. For all his ability and his creative summonings, there was nothing he could do to locate his friend or bring her home.

 

_As the glow of the summoning circle died down, Sidney stood up, unfolding his long limbs. “Wonderful, you’re both back!” he exclaimed, seeing Wolfe and O’Malley leaning against the wall._

_“What was that?” Wolfe asked._

_Sidney waved one of the maps that the Widdershins Tourist Board distributed to visitors. “Curiosity! I thought it might be good for tracking down where the Sins are strongest! I got it to imbue this map in exchange for a secret, it loves those!”_

_Ben eyed him sidelong. A map imbued with Curiosity wasn’t in any book he had ever read, and it certainly wasn’t something he himself would have thought of. “Where did you say you’d studied magic, Mr…?” he asked, tapping his fingers against his arm._

_Sidney’s perpetual smile took on an anxious edge at his tone. “Malik! And, er… I went to Widdershins!”_

_“Oh,” Ben murmured, looking away. Widdershins. Of course. Would he never get away from talented, imaginative wizards who had gone to Widdershins University?_

_O’Malley, with his unerring instinct for Ben’s weak spots, grinned wickedly. “’Ow much better’s that than where you went?” he inquired._

_“Now, now, Mal,” Wolfe broke in, his tone gently chiding. “No-one is comparing degrees here, yes?” He wrapped one arm around Ben’s shoulders and the other around Sidney’s._

_Sidney stammered something, but Ben wasn’t listening. Really, it was too much. He spent countless hours studying, knew all the circles and the summoning spells by heart, and flashy performers like Sidney still got all the attention. Why did he even bother?_

 

If that conversation hadn’t happened, Ben wondered, would he have fallen so quickly under Envy’s influence? Probably so, given the way it had put its paw directly on his most deep-seated insecurities, but the incident with Sidney certainly hadn’t helped.

Wolfe and O’Malley had told him several times that he shouldn’t blame himself for succumbing to Envy, and he knew they were right; if he had learned anything today, it was that everyone was susceptible to one Sin or another. Nevertheless, the memory still made him wince.

 

_“But you,” the green fox purred, ruffling Ben’s forelock with a paw. “I remember you…”_

_Ben glared up at it. “As well you mi – “ he started to say, but was interrupted._

_“Sort of!” Envy added, leaping gracefully to the floor._

_Ben’s thoughts jerked to a halt. “Wh – ‘ sort of’?!” he repeated incredulously._

_Envy smirked. “Not exactly the memorable type, are you?”_

_“You little - !” Vee snarled, but Envy ignored her._

_“What can you even do that your friends can’t do better?”_

_The words struck straight at the heart of Ben’s darkest fears. What could he do? O’Malley had the Sight and was, apparently, a witch; Wolfe was tall, handsome, and likeable; Vee was clever and brave; Sidney was a gifted wizard. He was short, socially awkward, and had barely managed to get even a third-class degree. What was the point of his being here at all?_

_“Mediocre in every regard, that’s you!” Envy continued over Ben’s attempt to say something – he didn’t even know what. “No, no lead role for you!”_

_Puppet control bars appeared in its paws, the glowing green strings attached to Vee and Sidney’s bodies. Envy turned and bounded away, pulling them helplessly behind it. “Enjoy the show, Mr… whatever your name is!” it called over its shoulder._

_The spotlight snapped off, releasing Ben from his frozen immobility. His body sagged. “That’s – that isn’t true, is it?” he mumbled, turning away._

_Of course it was Sidney who got to be onstage, the little voice in his head whispered. He had all the other advantages; why wouldn’t he get this one too?_

_There was an empty seat at the end of the front row, and Ben sat down in it. “No, it’s definitely not,” he muttered to himself, scarcely noticing that the world around him had taken on a greenish tinge. “Definitely.”_

 

And that incident, in turn, had set the stage for what happened two Sins later. Ben drew in a deep breath, then let it out. It was time to face up to the most painful episode of that long, complicated day, the one that had broken him so badly that only his cousin could put him back together. It was a victory, but at the time it hadn’t felt like anything of the kind.

 

_The huge, indistinct pink shape that was all he could see of Pride without his glasses – and with his vision blurred by tears on top of that – loomed threateningly over him, but Ben was beyond caring. He hurled the words at it like a weapon, the only one he had. “So you can’t take my pride, because I don’t have any!”_

_Sidney grabbed him around the waist and pulled him backward as Pride lashed out with an earsplitting screech. Ben found himself laughing; in his exhausted and wrought-up state, it was somehow funny that he, small, insignificant, and worthless, should be able to rouse a Deadly Sin to fury._

_“I have no friends!” he yelled as Sidney towed him toward the door. “Only people who are obligated to be around me!”_

_It was almost a relief to let out the things he heard in his head every day, the voice that whispered that no matter how hard he tried, he would never be good enough. A tiny corner of his mind was aware that he was losing control, but he no longer had the emotional wherewithal to pull himself together. It didn’t matter, anyway. None of it mattered._

 

Ben rubbed a hand over his face and drew another shaky breath. _Persistent and resolute_ , he told himself. From somewhere came a faint memory – or was that a dream? – of O’Malley’s voice saying _Th’ bravest bloke I ever met_. He had weakened Pride; he had brought down Ms. Fairbairn, and through her, Sloth. He was the one who knew the circle patterns when O’Malley needed them that morning. He was Ben Thackerey, and that was enough.

Before today, no matter how well he knew all this intellectually, he had had difficulty believing it in his heart. Now… well, he couldn’t pretend to Wolfe’s self-confidence, but there was a small, steady flame inside him that hadn’t been there before.

Perhaps part of that came from the realization that the rest of what he had shouted at Pride was wrong too. He did have friends. He had always thought that because O’Malley and Wolfe were so close, there was no room for him in their friendship; while they would likely continue to look to each other first, he knew that they cared about him as well, each in his own way. And there was Vee, who would be at his back whenever he needed her – not because they were related by blood, but because she chose to be there.

Ben yawned and turned over, drawing the blanket up around his neck. Tomorrow he, Wolfe, and O’Malley would go back into town and see if anything could be salvaged from the wreck of their house. Perhaps some of the malforms would turn up; although he hadn’t said so, it was clear O’Malley was worrying about what had become of them after they ran away from Wrath. He would have to get some new posters made so that people would know they were still in business, and buy chalk for drawing circles, and….


End file.
